


Bullseye

by Eienvine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 20:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eienvine/pseuds/Eienvine
Summary: It’s pretty weird, having an Asgardian shieldmaiden for a roommate. But in some ways, she’s not so different from Jane and Darcy: she’s just as happy as they are to get drunk and throw darts at photos of her ex.





	Bullseye

**Author's Note:**

> I just miss these three, is all.
> 
> Slight spoilers for Infinity War (although after a year, I think we've passed the statute of limitations on spoilers for that movie) and my own wishful thinking projected into Endgame.

. . . . . .

Darcy Lewis’s life has been pretty weird since the day she met Dr. Jane Foster. In the six years since then, she has befriended gods, tangled with shadowy government agents, been attacked by giant metal monsters, encountered more gravitational anomalies and Einstein-Rosen bridges than she can shake a stick at, and helped save Earth from the Dark Elves. Her boss-turned-friend-turned-roommate used to date an actual superhero alien prince. So, needless to say, there is very little that can faze Darcy.

But even she is surprised when Space Xena moves in with them.

It’s Jane’s doing, of course; Jane is the nicest person Darcy knows, except for when she’s single-mindedly pursuing scientific discoveries and hitting people with cars and whatnot. So when an Asgardian warrior woman shows up at their London apartment one cold, drizzly night, it’s Jane who invites her in for tea, Jane who kindly takes her cloak and sword to the hall closet, Jane who remembers that her name is Sif.

“Dr. Foster, Miss Lewis,” Sif says with a formal bow. “I come seeking the whereabouts of Thor.”

Jane and Darcy share a quick glance. “I haven’t seen Thor in months,” says Jane. “Nearly a year.”

Sif’s brow furrows. “But I thought you two were . . .”

“We broke up,” Jane says, still a little uncomfortable discussing it, nearly a year later.

Darcy grins proudly. “She dumped him.”

“It was mutual,” Jane insists.

Sif’s concerned look is blossoming into genuine worry. “Truly, you have no idea where he might be?” she asks, and when Jane shakes her head, the Asgardian’s shoulders slump, just a little. Even Darcy feels bad for the obvious weight Sif is carrying around, and Darcy never feels bad for people.

“Why don’t you ask Space Dad?” Darcy asks, and Jane translates, “She means Odin.”

Sif sighs. “Odin is the problem.” And, with Jane’s gentle prodding, she explains that her king has changed in the years since his wife and son’s deaths, has grown unpredictable and self-centered; he lazes away his days in Asgard, ignoring his duties, while sending her and the Warriors Three on time-wasting quests all over the Nine Realms, clearly just trying to get them out of his hair.

“He will not listen to reason. And he seems to want me, in particular, away from Asgard—away from him. Yesterday he told me to just leave Asgard and take time to ‘find myself,’ whatever that means; I have been instructed not to return for some time. So I came to find Thor, for perhaps his father will hear reason from him.”

“I wish I could help you,” Jane says. “But I don’t know anything about Thor anymore.”

Sif nods, her gaze fixed on her teacup, and for the first time Darcy notices the dark circles under her eyes, the tension in her jaw.  
And Jane must see it too, because she says, “Look, why don’t you stay here for a few days? The sofa pulls out into a bed, and we can go through my latest readings and see if there’s any evidence Thor’s been on Earth lately.”

Sif must truly have nowhere to go, because she agrees. She crashes on the sofa and paces for two days while Jane runs computer analyses on her gathered data. They find nothing. Jane runs them again.

Two days turn into five days, and then a week, then two, and the search for Thor just sort of dies away. Darcy’s irritation at their houseguest who has vastly overstayed her welcome softens when Jane points out to her one day that clearly Sif has nowhere to go, after being sent away from her home without explanation. It softens even further when Darcy introduces Sif to online streaming and gets her hooked on _Survivor_ and they bond over shouting at the TV. And the next thing she knows she’s educating Sif on the history of rap and buying her workout clothes so she can go running without people thinking she’s LARPing. (Darcy selects sweat pants with JUICY written on the butt because it is hilarious. Jane does not laugh. Sif thanks Darcy very solemnly and Darcy can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or genuinely grateful.)

But she wouldn’t say that she and Sif exactly become friends until the first night they all get drunk together.

Sif has been living with them for three weeks, and they’ve all admitted to themselves that she’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Jane has a crappy day at work, with a crappy colleague who gives her a hard time; Sif and Darcy both just like any reason to drink. So they open two bottles of Talisker after dinner; Jane and Darcy drink from one and Sif, with her Asgardian constitution, finishes the entire other bottle before the alcohol starts to have any effect on her.

And then, in that pleasant state where she’s buzzed and sloppy but not yet lethargic, Darcy goes to the closet and pulls out a box. “Darts!” she announces, and Jane lifts her glass and cheers.

This is a long-standing tradition when Jane and Darcy drink together. Darcy affixes two dartboards to the wall while Jane goes to the computer and prints off two pictures she has saved there. One goes on each dartboard, and then the two women stand there and drunkenly throw darts at the handsome faces of Thor Odinson and Matt Newby.

Sif watches this for a while, baffled. “What has Thor done to deserve having his likeness treated so violently?” she asks finally.

“Broke my heart!” Jane announces, pouring herself another glass.

“I thought it was mutual.”

“No, she dumped him!” Darcy insists.

“I dumped him a little,” Jane admits. “But only because he’d basically already left me. He was always off doing . . . Thor stuff. So I said—” here she assumes a dramatic pose, and some of her whiskey sloshes over the edge of the glass and down her hand— “I’m not going to waste my life waiting for you to come back here when it suits you.”

“Yeah you did,” Darcy cheers, while Sif watches them in surprise.

For a brief moment, Darcy remembers that Thor is Sif’s crown prince and sworn brother-in-arms or whatever, and she remembers that she has suspected a time or two that Sif’s feelings toward Thor have not always been entirely platonic. And she worries for a minute they’ve offended Sif with their game.

But Sif merely nods. “And who is this other image?”

“Matt,” growls Darcy, and hurls a dart haphazardly at the wall. It’s really very fortunate they have a concrete wall to hang the dartboards on, so the darts don’t do much damage when they miss.

“And Matt is?”

Matt is the last time Darcy really, genuinely gave her heart to someone. And he’s the reason she hasn’t done it since. “My biggest mistake. My biggest regret. Take your pick.” This time the dart goes right through his eye, and Darcy cheers. “Not so sexy now, are you?”

“Ah,” says Sif, “I believe I’m beginning to understand the point of this game.” And she makes her way over to the computer and starts hesitantly clicking on things.

“She can use a computer?” Darcy demands.

“I’ve been teaching her,” Jane explains. “I thought she could use it to entertain herself during the day.”

A minute later, Sif pulls a sheet from the printer and walks over to pin it on top of the picture of Thor. “Give me the darts,” she commands, and it’s only when she steps back that they see who the picture is of. It’s from a news report about the Chitauri invasion; the face looking back at them is familiar, with pale skin and dark hair and menace in his eyes.

“Seriously?” Jane demands. “Him?”

But Darcy is one of those people—there’s more of them than you’d think—who agree that Loki Odinson is pretty horrible but also pretty hot. “No,” she says, “I get it.”

Sif turns a pained smirk on her before sending five darts sailing at the board in rapid succession. Her aim is perfect: five darts cluster right in the center of Loki’s nose. “I only wish this was actually his face,” she says venomously.

Jane looks a little startled, but Darcy is grinning widely. She gets the feeling that she and Sif are going to get along just fine.

. . . . . .

She’s right. By the second anniversary of Sif moving in with them, the three women have become as thick as thieves; “the Three Musketeers,” Jane sometimes calls them, which of course had necessitated yet another cultural explanation to Sif. Sif does all the housework and the grocery shopping in exchange for free rent—she can’t exactly get a job, having no identification—and both Jane and Darcy hate cooking and cleaning enough to think it’s a great exchange. They introduce Sif to all the great Earth movie classics. She teaches them hand-to-hand combat. They go to the pub together and Sif earns money for her drinks by betting guys she can beat them arm wrestling, which is never not funny.

And every so often, they get so drunk at home that they pull out the dartboards—they bought Sif her own board for her first Christmas on Earth—and throw darts at Thor, Matt, and Loki.

It’s a pretty beautiful friendship.

And so it goes, and so it might have gone forever if not for that unfortunate incident when half of the life in the universe is wiped out by the Infinity Gauntlet, and all three roommates are turned to dust.

“At least we went together!” Darcy offers cheerfully when they’re miraculously restored four days later.

Things can’t quite go back to normal after an experience like that, can they? Sif is restless and anxious as they surf the web looking for information on what happened, and Darcy knows her friend is going to leave soon, to find Thor, and to learn what has happened and whether Odin’s madness has passed and if she’ll be welcomed back on Asgard.

Which is seriously a bummer.

So, the night after half the universe comes back to life, Darcy pulls out the dartboards. “One last time?”

So they pull out the good booze for Darcy and Jane, and the cheap booze for Sif, having learned after that first night drinking together that with how much alcohol it takes to get Sif drunk, giving her the good stuff would bankrupt them. And they proceed with their dart throwing.

They are so caught up in cheering each other on that they don’t notice the front door opening and the two figures entering the apartment; they only turn when a very familiar voice says, “Jane?”

Jane jumps and turns and flails in surprise just as she’s in the process of throwing her next dart, and the projectile flies through the air and buries itself in the wall just inches from the hunky face of one Thor Odinson, inexplicably boasting short hair and an eyepatch.

“Thor,” breathes Jane.

That’s when the other visitor speaks. “Sif,” he says tightly, his expression showing relief but his body language advertising tension.

Sif stares long and hard at Loki Odinson, traitor prince of Asgard. And then she lifts her arm and very deliberately launches a dart at his face.

Loki vaporizes the dart with a wave of his hand—A wizard! In the living room! How is this Darcy’s actual life?—and when he makes some bland comment about how it’s nice to see her too, Darcy gets the sense that he’s genuinely hurt.

So maybe the emotion that causes Sif to repeatedly riddle his picture with holes isn’t entirely one-sided.

“We came to check on you,” Thor explains; he glances at Sif to add, “Dearest friend Sif, I did not know you were here, but I am so pleased to have found you.” And now his gaze is fixed on Jane again, with a look like he is dying of thirst and she is water. “We were fairly certain that we had reversed all of what Thanos did, but I had to see for myself—I had to know—” He takes an urgent step forward. “Jane, I was so worried. I’ve been such a fool.”

Jane stares up at him, and then she smiles, and then she takes a step toward him.

Darcy grins.

“Sif,” Loki says again, and Sif turns on her heel and disappears into the back of the apartment.

“We’ve talked about you going in my room!” Darcy yells. “You’d better not stab any of my stuff!”

She turns back to see Loki examining the dartboard that holds his face, one long finger poking at the dart currently embedded in his photo’s forehead. She sees his shoulders sinking, just a little, in what she can only assume is regret or disappointment or sorrow or all three. His expression becomes resigned, as though he expected nothing better (although she saw that heartfelt relief when he first saw Sif there, and that brief flash of hope when their eyes met).

And okay, this guy is a straight-up super villain who tried to take over the planet and killed a bunch of people, but he also seems changed now: older, sadder, more subdued. And also Darcy knows heartbreak when she sees it. And also she’s pried a few details out of Sif, and she knows a few things—knows the things in Sif’s heart, the things the warrior is never going to say out loud. Not without a little help.

And okay, Darcy knows all the reasons she shouldn’t, but she takes pity on the guy. Is that so terrible of her? Yeah, probably, but they’ve been dead the last four days, and it’s a miracle any of them got a second chance at life, and now he’s here, and Thor wouldn’t trust him without reason.

And Sif deserves to be happy.

So Darcy sidles up to Loki and says conversationally, “So. Darts to the face.”

“Apparently,” he responds tightly.

A tiny smile softens her face. “You know we only throw darts at guys who really broke our hearts, right? The ones that still hurt? The ones we can’t let go of?”

Loki is very, very still for a moment. And then he turns to look at her, his face carefully expressionless. “Is that so?”

She nods. “She wouldn’t have chosen your face if she was over you.”

For a moment his eyes spark to life, and he takes a quick breath—and then he hesitates. “She’s made it quite clear—”

Darcy rolls her eyes, forgetting for a moment that he’s probably the most dangerous person she’s ever been in close contact with and she probably shouldn’t antagonize him. “Talk to her,” she commands. “At the very least, she deserves an explanation and an apology, don’t you think?”

Still he hesitates.

“Come on, you’re brave enough to destroy New York City but not to talk to your crush?”

Now he is giving her a dark look, and she really hopes this is a kinder, gentler Loki who’s not about to turn her into a frog.

But then he drops the look. “Do you really think . . .”

“Yes.”

Loki is still, and then he slowly lets out a long, tense breath. And with a final glance at her, he slowly makes his way to Darcy’s bedroom door and knocks gently.

The door opens much more quickly than Darcy had expected.

And Darcy sits on the armrest of the couch and looks around in satisfaction. Jane is in Thor’s embrace now, and he is murmuring things into her hair, and both of them look at peace in a way they haven’t since long before their breakup.

And on the other side of the apartment, Sif is standing in the doorway of Darcy’s bedroom; her body language is unwelcoming but she is at least listening attentively, while Loki speaks to her; Darcy can’t catch the words, but the tone and the expression are earnest and sincere. And Sif’s expression softens, just a little.

And Darcy looks from one couple to the other and back again, and she grins and pours herself another drink, because this looks like cause for celebration. And she glances back at the dartboards, where two out of the three targets seem to be on their way to reconciliation. And for a moment, she wishes Matt Newby were here.

Because she’d really love to throw a dart at his face.

. . . . . .

fin

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the fact that they're drinking Talisker is a Cabin Pressure reference. Everything should contain Cabin Pressure references.


End file.
